India successfully test fires supersonic interceptor missile

Balasore (Odisha): India on Friday successfully test-fired an indigenously developed supersonic interceptor missile, capable of destroying a hostile ballistic missile, from a test range off the Odisha coast.

"At around 12.52 hours, the interceptor hit the target missile successfully at an altitude of about 15 kilometres," DRDO spokesman Ravi Kumar Gupta told PTI. India is working towards development of a multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence system.

The test was conducted to validate various parameters of the interceptor in flight mode, said a Defence source.

The 'hostile' ballistic missile, a modified surface- to-surface 'Prithvi', mimicking an incoming enemy weapon, first lifted off from a mobile launcher at around 12.52 hours from the launch complex-3 of integrated test range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-Sea, about 15 km from Balasore.

Within about four minutes, the interceptor, Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile positioned at Wheeler Island, about 70 km from Chandipur, after getting signals from tracking radars, roared through its trajectory to destroy the incoming missile mid-air, in an "endo-atmospheric" altitude, Defence sources said.

"The 'kill' effect of the interceptor is being ascertained by analysing data from multiple tracking sources,"a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist said soon after the test was carried out.

The interceptor is a 7.5-metre-long single-stage solid rocket propelled guided missile equipped with a navigation system, a hi-tech computer and an electro-mechanical activator, the sources said.